3 ms·
No? Why would you think I implied that? The point I was making is that true mass extinctions are so nasty surviving them becomes an exercise in post apocalypt
by pfdietz 1y ago
No? Why would you think I implied that?
The point I was making is that true mass extinctions are so nasty surviving them becomes an exercise in post apocalyptic science fiction. The P-T mass extinction, for example, made the equatorial oceans so hot no vertebrate life could survive. And that extinction lasted 5 million years.
- JKCalhoun 1y agoI think I get it: the article is saying we're in a minor mass extinction and you're suggesting the threshold for a large mass extinction is exceedingly high — we're not even close. (And I am guessing you brought nuclear war in as an example of post apocalyptic science fiction that even still would not push us to the large mass extinction threshold.) "If there is a geologic precedent for what industrial civilisation has been up to in the past few centuries, it is something like the volcanoes of the end-Permian mass extinction." These kinds of things (mass extinction, health of the planet) are things that I increasingly show an abundance of caution for. Not doing so seems like the horrific alternative. I get that there have been some very high bars to make this #6 mass extinction, but also downplaying what is happening because it is not yet a record seems reckless.
- pfdietz 1y agoThe CO2 level in the P-T mass extinction may have been as high as 3%. I think global civilization would collapse before we reached that level and fossil fuel emission would end. I'm not even sure humanity could survive breathing air with that much CO2.